I'm seeing articles where people are projecting Zach might command as much as 8-9 million on the open market.

That being said, i would still pay it in a heart beat. You need to take care of the captain that keeps giving us this huge hometown discount. He is freeing up space so we can get guys like this. Reward him.

I've said it here before, but the direction Staal has decided to go the past year or two hasn't been what is best for the Pens. His defensive game has gotten worse and he was no longer fulfilling his "shutdown" label anymore. He's a terrific talent, but I think he's more replaceable now than the Cups years.

That said, Shero still needs to find someone to take up Staal's mantle as resident defensive forward. Gaustad please!

Staal never once scored 30 goals in the league. The closest he ever got was 29 his rookie year and never came close to eclipsing that number again. Lets not act like Sutter's 5-7 less goals per season are going to be a huge difference for the team.

Pavel Bure wrote:Staal never once scored 30 goals in the league. The closest he ever got was 29 his rookie year and never came close to eclipsing that number again. Lets not act like Sutter's 5-7 less goals per season are going to be a huge difference for the team.

Whoever fills out the 6th forward on the top 2 lines will determine if we made up for it. Sutter won't have the expectations to be both production AND defense like Staal. So if he puts up 15-20 or anywhere near it, we are fine. Right now we just have an opening on wing. As long as TK isn't the answer, we should be more than fine, IMO.

Pavel Bure wrote:Staal never once scored 30 goals in the league. The closest he ever got was 29 his rookie year and never came close to eclipsing that number again. Lets not act like Sutter's 5-7 less goals per season are going to be a huge difference for the team.

Gaucho wrote:Pens are still by far the best team down the middle, so it does not seem like much of a blow-up.

Just a re-tooling so to speak. I like where Shero is taking this.

I agree, it's a proper re-tooling. Realistically, Jordan Staal was 2nd liner that we had the luxury of positioning on our 3rd line.

We are now adding Brandon Sutter, whom is a true 3rd liner and will be happy with his role and has the ability to play with Geno and Sid and do just fine.

I don't believe Jordan Staal will start producing all star numbers just because he's getting the minutes on the top line, but he deserves the opportunity to play in a more "Offensive" approaching line.

I like all the moves so far. However, we lost a top player and one of our only dmen who didn't act like a poor mans Paul Coffey.

I understand we have cap space but 21 teams have more and we have 3 or 4 forward spots to fill plus one or two d spots. Plus you cant just go by this years projections for cap if you sign a guy to a long term deal. It's just not guaranteed sid only wants 9 or the cap will keep growing.

All that I am saying is its not as easy as pie for us to sign a ZP or Suter to long term deals, not bashing what we have done so far.